[1] Writing the Short-Slory, page 247.

It is by making all of his characters talk alike that the novice is betrayed, whereas in giving each character individuality of speech as well as of action the master dramatist is revealed.  While it is permissible for two minor characters to possess a hazy likeness of speech, because they are so unimportant that the audience will not pay much attention to them, the playlet writer must give peculiar individuality to every word spoken by the chief characters.  By this I do not mean that, merely to show that a character is different, a hero or heroine should be made to talk with a lisp or to use some catch-word—­though this is sometimes done with admirable effect.  What I mean is that the words given to the chief characters must possess an individuality rising from their inner differences; their speech should show them as not only different from each other, but also different from every other character in the playlet—­in the whole world, if possible—­and their words should be just the words they and no others would use in the circumstances.

If you will remember that you must give to the dialogue of your chief characters a unity as complete as you must give to plot and character as shown through action, you will evade many dialogue dangers.  This will not only help you to give individuality to each character, but also save you from making a character use certain individual expressions at one time and then at another talk in the way some other character has spoken.  Furthermore, strict observance of this rule should keep you from putting into the mouth of a grown man, who is supposed to be most manly, expressions only a “sissy” would use; or introducing a character as a wise man and permitting him to talk like a fool.  As in life, so in dialogue—­consistency is a test of worth.

Keep your own personality out of the dialogue.  Remember that your characters and not you are doing the talking.  You have laid down a problem in your playlet, and your audience expects it to fulfill its promise dramatically—­that is, by a mimicry of life.  So it does not care to listen to one man inhabiting four bodies and talking like a quartet of parrots.  It wants to hear four different personalities talk with all the individuality that life bestows so lavishly—­in life.

You will find little difficulty in keeping your individuality out of dialogue if you will only remember that you cannot write intelligently of characters you do not know.  Make use of the characters nearest you, submerge yourself in their individualities, and you will then be so interested in them that you will forget yourself and end by making the characters of your playlet show themselves in their dialogue as individual, enthrallingly entertaining, new, and—­what is the final test of all dialogue—­convincing.